Dead Even

by Mariah Stewart

  “Why not?” Will turned to her. “Who is there for him to be afraid of? Channing’s dead, and Giordano is back in prison, right?”

  “He won’t admit to the conspiracy.” Evan shook his head. “He’s out, he’s going to want to stay out. Why should he implicate himself in anything?”

  “Maybe, if he thought he could get immunity, he’d tell the truth,” Will suggested.

  “I know this guy,” Evan told him. “He’ll smirk and he’ll lie, but he’ll never admit to knowing either of the others. As a matter of fact, he’s already denied ever having met them. Believe me, I’ve asked.”

  “What’s his incentive?” Will persisted. “There’s no one to make him follow through.”

  “We don’t know what his intentions are,” Anne Marie agreed, “but I think, knowing what we know, we have to proceed as if he is planning on playing this out. Several lives could be at stake.”

  “Then we really have nothing to lose by confronting him.” Jared turned to Miranda. “Since you were involved in the other two cases and know some of the players, I’d like you to take the lead here. Pay him a visit, have a little chat with him.”

  “My pleasure.” Miranda smiled. She’d expected this.

  “You, Fletcher.” Jared directed his gaze to the opposite side of the table. “You’ll go along. I want him to know that the Bureau is very, very serious about this. Two agents will make a stronger impression than one.”

  “But what about Annie and Evan?” Miranda frowned. “Evan’s dealt with Lowell before, and Annie’s insights into his personality would be invaluable. I’d think either of them would be better suited to the assignment than Will.”

  “Annie is headed back to Quantico for a lecture she’s giving tomorrow, and Detective Crosby—who, may I remind you, does not work for the Bureau—is heading back to his classes at the National Academy. John asked them here today strictly for their input.” Jared closed his folder and slipped it back into his briefcase. “The case is all yours, Agent Cahill. Yours, and Agent Fletcher’s. Visit Archer Lowell. Find out what he’s up to. Put the fear of God into him. Any questions?”

  He looked from Miranda to Will, then back again. They both shook their heads no. No questions.

  “Good.” Jared grinned amicably as he stood. “Now, let’s see if I can find Mrs. Duffy. Anyone else want dessert?”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  “What a great way to start off a new week,” Miranda grumbled under her breath as she hung her clothes in the small closet of her room at the Fleming Inn. Just peachy.

  Under ordinary circumstances, she’d live out of her suitcase rather than take time from a job to unpack. But these circumstances were not the norm, and she needed a little bit of a break between finding out with whom she’d been partnered on this assignment, and actually forging ahead. It wasn’t that she had doubts about Will’s abilities. On the contrary, he had an unfailingly accurate mind for facts and dates. Unfailing, and highly annoying, as far as she was concerned. The man had a mind like a steel trap. He never forgot a damned thing.

  Except the things that might have mattered most.

  “Might have is the key here,” she murmured to herself. “Apparently, some things mattered only to me.”

  Let it go. That was then; this is now. You’re a professional. He’s a professional. You have a job to do. Several innocent lives may very well depend on how well you do it.

  “Right,” she muttered aloud as she debated a change in clothing. The red jacket and short black skirt had been fine for the meeting, but now she was going into the field. She decided to change.

  “Absolutely right. Focus on Will Fletcher, federal agent, and stuff Will Fletcher, the man I once thought I was in love with, into some dark, subterranean place where he belongs.”

  She traded the short skirt for tailored black pants, the white sweater for a crisp white shirt, all the while mentally toying with the image of Will Fletcher being physically stuffed into a dark place. Dark and dank. One filled with spiders.

  Picturing Will with big black spiders crawling on him somehow cheered her.

  “There. I feel better already.” She switched jackets and closed the closet door.

  She turned off the light and left the room, her leather bag swinging from her right shoulder, her key chain in her hand. She marched down the steps to the first floor.

  “Well, you’re in a better frame of mind,” Will observed from the bottom of the steps, where he leaned upon the newel post.

  “Must have been the chocolate mousse.”

  “I must say I’m a bit disappointed, Cahill.” He eyed her as they went out the front door.

  “Oh? In what?”

  “In the wardrobe change. How many of those black suits do you own, anyway?”

  “I have closets full of boring black suits, Fletcher.”

  “Seriously, what’s with that?”

  “When I’m in the field, I want to fade as much into the background as possible. I don’t want my clothes to be an issue.”

  “Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Cahill, but it would take a hell of a lot more than a black suit for you to fade into the background.” He glanced at her sideways, saw her jaw clench.

  “Thank you. I think.” She shifted her bag a little higher on her shoulder. “Can we get back to the case now?”

  “Whatever you say. You ready to take on old Archer?”

  “Piece o’ cake.” She walked past him and took the path that forked to the right.

  “My car is over here.” He stopped midway down the walk.

  “Well, mine is over here.” She called back without turning around. “Don’t make me remind you who is the lead on this case.”

  “That entitles you to drive?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Do I have to ride with you in that?”

  She laughed. “Chicken?”

  “Just try to keep it under seventy when you go through town. I hear the police in these little hamlets get a wee bit testy about—” He had barely gotten in and closed the door before she put the car in reverse. “Shit, Cahill . . .”

  “Hey, I thought you liked a little speed.”

  “I love speed. I love a fast car. When I’m behind the wheel.”

  She smiled to herself. It still pleased her to get a rise out of him. She understood it was childish and accepted that.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked, as he snapped on his seat belt.

  “The directions to Archer’s mother’s place were in the packet Jared gave me. I’m assuming you had the same info in yours.”

  “I assumed we’d be leaving right away. Had I known you were going to take twenty minutes to carry your suitcase up to your room, I’d have read through it.”

  She responded by pushing a little harder on the gas pedal.

  “Jesus, Cahill.” He blew out a long exasperated breath.

  Miranda laughed and cut back on the gas just enough to let him know it had been deliberate.

  “Three miles down Pine Top Road—which we are on—we will come to a fork. We will take the road on the left—that will be Edgemont Road—for another mile, until we come to the Pine Top Trailer Park. The Lowells’ trailer is on Oak View Lane, number seventeen.” She recited without taking her eyes from the road. “Also found in Jared’s packet was Mrs. Lowell’s work schedule for the next three weeks. She left the trailer at seven this morning, won’t be back until five-thirty this afternoon. Gives us almost three hours with him.”

  “How do you want to play it?”

  “Chat him up a bit, make him wonder why the FBI is looking for him. He’s young and he’s very stupid, according to the file and Anne Marie’s notes. I think I can make him nervous.”

  “God knows you make me nervous,” Will said under his breath.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Anyway, I think we can play with him a bit, then we’ll bring up Giordano.”

 
“Anyone ask Giordano about Lowell or Channing?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” She frowned. “Of course he was asked. Read the damned file, Fletcher. He denied ever hearing their names before.”

  “So we have denial all around.” He ignored her jab. She knew he wouldn’t have had time to look through the file. She also knew that by the time he had, he’d be as familiar with the case as she now was.

  “As deep as it gets.”

  “If Lowell is as dumb as everyone thinks he is, maybe we can convince him that Giordano gave him up.”

  “That’s part of the plan, Stan.” Miranda pulled off the main road into the trailer park, and slowed when she saw the number of small children who were out playing on this late October afternoon.

  She stopped in front of the last trailer on the left.

  “This is it,” she announced as she turned off the engine.

  The trailer was small but neat, with checked curtains hanging in all the windows and some seasonal decorations—a few hardy purple cabbages and a wooden barrel of purple pansies—near the painted door.

  “Mrs. Lowell keeps a tidy house. At least on the outside,” Miranda observed.

  “Let’s see what’s going on inside.” Will stepped forward and knocked on the door.

  From inside, they could hear the jingle for an allergy medication commercial.

  “Someone’s catching a little daytime TV,” Miranda noted.

  The door opened partway, and a sleepy-faced Archer Lowell looked down at Will.

  “Whatcha want?” he mumbled.

  “Just a word or two.” Will smiled and placed his hand on the door just as Archer’s eyes shifted to Miranda, who was holding up her FBI credentials.

  “Oh, no. Uh-uh.” He tried to shut the door, but his best efforts were no match for Will. “I didn’t do nothin’. I swear. I served my time. I’m done. You get off my property. I don’t have nothin’ to say to you.”

  “Of course, you do, Archer.” Miranda smiled and stepped in front of Will to push her way into the trailer, Will following closely behind. With every step she took forward, Archer took one back. “We have lots to talk about. We have so many acquaintances in common.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stopped when he found himself backed into the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area.

  “Why, sure you do. Now, I was just talking to Detective Crosby this morning—I know you remember Detective Crosby—and he was telling me how you were out and about. Well, here I was, so close by, I figured I should stop and say hi.” She never took her eyes from his face. As if fascinated by her, Archer could not look away.

  “What do you want?” He forced himself to look elsewhere.

  “Well, first I wanted you to meet my good buddy Agent Fletcher. Say hello to Agent Fletcher, Archer.”

  “Hello. Why are you here?”

  “We just stopped by to check out something that Detective Crosby mentioned. About Vincent Giordano.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, Archer, don’t play that game with me. Please. We all know about the favors you and Vince and Curtis Channing agreed to do for one another.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know no one named Vince or Curtis.”

  “That’s funny. ’Cause Vince knows you.”

  Archer shrugged. “Can’t place him.”

  “You’re better than I expected, Archer.” Will leaned back against the door frame. “I’m impressed. I don’t believe you, but I am impressed.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you are. You don’t have no business with me, so you can both leave. I didn’t do nothing, I barely left this trailer since I got out of prison. I don’t have no car, no job, nothing. I don’t go nowhere.” The look on his face was smug. “So you just go on out of here. I don’t know no one named Vince, no one named Curtis whatever you said his name was. I don’t know what they done, and I don’t want to know, but it has nothing to do with me.”

  He pushed past Will to shove the door open.

  “See you around, Archer.” Miranda winked.

  “Later.” Will smiled and followed her out the door.

  They did not speak until they were back in the car.

  “He’s better than I expected,” Will said.

  “We’re better. Right now he thinks he’s got the edge. Did you see that smug look?” She turned the key in the ignition, let the car idle. “So I think we’ll just sit here for a few minutes and give him a little something to think about.”

  She fished her cell phone from her bag and rolled down the window, the phone in her left hand. “Let him think we’re really on to something—which we will be, once we start to get to him.”

  She pretended to speak into the phone instead of to her companion.

  “Okay.” She made a show of dropping the phone into her bag. “Now he thinks we just reported to someone, so he’s going to be a little more nervous about leaving home.”

  “You didn’t buy that I-haven’t-been-outside-these-four-walls-in-weeks routine, either, eh?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s twenty years old; he’s been locked up for months. I noticed a bar about a quarter mile from the trailer park. I’ll bet that’s where he hangs out.”

  Miranda put the car in reverse and backed out of the small parking pad, then took off slowly down the wide black-topped road.

  “Maybe we should stop back this evening and see.”

  “Maybe we should.”

  Will turned to look at the bar in question as they sped past.

  “Looks like a biker bar I used to hang out in, once upon a time.”

  “A biker bar? Were you undercover?”

  “No, this was before I came to the Bureau.”

  She frowned. Biker bar? Mr. Conservative from the Heartland of America Will Fletcher?

  He smiled with satisfaction. “Thought you knew all there was to know, did you?”

  Vowing not to ask, she bit her lip, and hit the gas.

  Archer stood in the tiny bathroom and peered through the curtains, watching until the Spyder backed up and drove off.

  What the hell was that all about?

  Had Vince Giordano given him up? Had he?

  No, no, that wouldn’t happen. He and Vince and Curt, they had this pact. Vince would never . . .

  But even if he had, so what? It was his word against mine. And he’s a convicted killer. An admitted murderer. Sure, sure, Vince could have said something. Maybe he did. But who the hell can prove it? They got nothing to tie me to Vince. Nothing at all.

  He thought about Vince’s last victims. Two of the three had connections to Archer. And the last intended victim, Amanda Crosby, well, okay, Archer had served time for stalking her.

  But what does that prove? Maybe Vince saw her and maybe he sorta flipped for her, too. She’s pretty hot, isn’t she? Who wouldn’t want her?

  And Curtis, well, he’s stone dead, isn’t he? He ain’t talking to no one.

  It was then that Archer realized he’d started to sweat.

  Hey, come on. No big deal. They got nothing on me, and I ain’t killed no one.

  “And guess what, Vince?” he said aloud as he went back into the kitchen for a beer. “I ain’t going to kill no one.”

  He paused, contemplating the irony of having Miranda Cahill show up at his door. He’d thought he was hallucinating when he first read the name on the identification she’d held up. The old spider and fly thing crossed his mind, but he pushed right past that. For one thing, it didn’t matter who she was, since he wasn’t gonna do nothing to no one. For another, there was that big guy with her.

  “But hey, Vince, you and Curt, you did your thing, I respect that. But I am out, and I am staying out. Ain’t no one knows about the game, and as far as I’m concerned, this game is over. Curt is dead, and you are never going to see the light of day, old buddy. There ain’t no reason for me to kill nobody. Ain’t no one who cares whether I do or not. Except maybe you, V
ince. And we both know where you are, don’t we?”

  He tipped his beer in the general direction of the county prison where Vince Giordano sat in his little cell, laughed, and took a sip. He thought about the three people who had made his life so miserable. The three people who were responsible for his spending these past months behind bars. The three people Vince Giordano had agreed to take out for him.

  Two of the three were now dead, thanks to good old Vince.

  That the third was still out there, well, two out of three ain’t bad. He could live with that. Archer’s anger was gone now, his life was going to move ahead, and he was never, ever going to look back. Not on Amanda Crosby, not on Vince Giordano or Curtis Alan Channing. Not on the game he himself had proposed that cold February morning.

  “Game over.” He raised the bottle in a toast to his absent companions. “I win.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  “So, what do you think?” Will asked as he looked around the dimly lit bar where he and Miranda had just finished dinner.

  “What do I think about what?” Miranda frowned. “The three pieces of greasy fried chicken I just ate? I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “I don’t recall anyone force-feeding you. And I don’t recall you ever turning your nose up at fried food in the past.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ve gotten a little more discriminating.”

  He laughed, and she made a face at him.

  “What time do you suppose he’ll show up?” she asked. “If this is, in fact, his watering hole.”

  “This is it, all right.” Will glanced around. “Close to home—critical when a guy has no wheels—and there’s a fair share of single ladies. All regulars, judging from the conversations I overheard around the bar while I was waiting for our beer. This is the neighborhood hangout. This would be his place.”

  “So the next question would be, is this his night?”

  “Every night is his night.” Will looked over to the door as two laughing couples entered and went straight to the far end of the bar. “He has nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. You think he’s sitting home with his mother every night? Nah. This is home base for him. Trust me.”